Bee Prepared...

I admit it: my 'gardening room' aka The Woman's Workshop, is less 'garden' and more 'beehive' at the moment. In amongst the over-wintering geraniums and pots of cactii are three full hives plus 13 supers, two smaller hives (cutely known as 'ruchettes' here in France), a bait box, a dozen queen excluders, crownboards, metal roofs, and over 100 frames with and without wax foundation, plus several litres of sugar syrup and kilos of candy, all ready for the coming beekeeping season.

I'm feeling a bit smug as, for once, I actually feel prepared. This time of year is a tricky one for beekeepers (and the bees); the weather is hit-and-miss with some cold snaps, currently a lot of rain, and the odd gloriously warm sunny day that makes us hopeful for an early Spring. Why is it tricky? Well, it's too cold to start inspecting the hives to see how the bees came through the winter, but it's not cold enough for the queens to have stopped laying. This means there are probably lots of new bees appearing, lots of hungry mouths to feed, and if the winter stores aren't plentiful enough and the foragers can't get out to go food shopping, so to speak, the colony will starve. The bees may have survived the winter, only to die in February.

We've been hefting our hives on a regular basis, the gradually decreasing weights informing us that the bees are eating their way through the stores of honey they had back in October/November. Out of 10 hives we've had to provide extra food in the form of candy and sugar syrup to just three, so we're pleased that the others were adequately stocked. It feels like it's been raining all year so far, but there have been one or two days where the bees have been able to fly out (mainly to have a poo!) and to collect any early pollen. The mahonia, japonica, crocuses (crocii?) and heathers are all blooming so there is food around for them, but it's no good being there if rain and low temperatures mean that they can't get out to collect it. This year I am not taking any chances; last year we lost one colony at the beginning of March and I am determined that won't happen this year.  It  was very upsetting as this particular colony had come through the winter fine but then the bees were trapped inside with not enough pollen for all the new brood and they starved. What's different for 2018? I am armed with kilos of pollen candy, a mix normally used to boost the Spring growth of colonies, and I will slap this over the crownboard feeder holes if the weather turns awful next month!

The answer to the question "what do beekeepers do in winter?" (other than keeping their fingers crossed that their colonies are still alive in the Spring) is "get everything ready". This brings us neatly back to why we have so many boxes stacked and waiting - before we know it we'll be managing swarms, splitting colonies, adding supers, and we don't want to be caught out, having to race across rural France to buy new equipment at the last minute. That's why we have it all ready now - cleaned frames, plenty of foundation, supers and excluders scraped free of propolis - bring it on!